Posted
by
samzenpuson Thursday August 19, 2010 @01:12PM
from the slippery-spoke dept.

somaTh writes "Dan Maes, a candidate for governor of Colorado, thinks he's found an international conspiracy that starts with bike sharing. The article describes his current complaints with the incumbent's policies. 'The bike program in it of itself, if that's all it is, I wouldn't be opposed to it,' Maes told 9NEWS. 'What I am opposed to is if it's part of a bigger program that the mayor has signed on to as part of a UN program. That I would be opposed to.' He goes on to argue that the bicycle program is only a gateway into bigger policies including, but not limited to, forced abortions and population control. I understand that bike seats are uncomfortable, but I had no idea it was on purpose."

It's like the Dances With Smurfs episode of South Park where butters says to Cartman, "Like what you have to say, like how the President never does anything and how she's changing everything!". Pretty much just like that. I think its a form of cognitive dissonance or something.

The UN can be, like Obama, both corrupt and ineffective, and diabolically genius at the same time. The rich can be corrupt plutocrats who purchase government wholesale, and an oppressed minority who desperately need tax cuts, all at the same time. Conservative thinking requires no logical connection between its premises.

"8. The followers must feel humiliated by the ostentatious wealth and force of their enemies.

When I was a boy I was taught to think of Englishmen as the five-meal people. They ate more frequently than the poor but sober Italians. Jews are rich and help each other through a secret web of mutual assistance. However, the followers of Ur-Fascism must also be convinced that they can overwhelm the enemies. Thus, by a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak. Fascist governments are condemned to lose wars because they are constitutionally incapable of objectively evaluating the force of the enemy."

You do notice that you're arguing with someone here, which means there are at least two people disagreeing, right? Also, you're both being modded up, which means that some people agree with you and some people agree with him.

It often seems to me that when someone complains here about Slashdot groupthink, it's because they say dumb things and have no ability to process intelligent disagreement.

I wish Democrats were that organized and good at staying on message. The Democrats' problem is that they fight amongst themselves all the time because they can't all agree on the right way forward. Exactly the opposite of Republicans.

I wish Democrats were that organized and good at staying on message. The Democrats' problem is that they fight amongst themselves all the time because they can't all agree on the right way forward. Exactly the opposite of Republicans.

Perhaps you could point me to an example of a serious Republican debate over policy, where Republicans differ, and their differences are not stifled immediately as they are forced to tow the party line.

So you're not familiar with the Tea Party? Look specifically into the issues they avoid, and you'll find what you're claiming doesn't exist. A big one is defense spending. Many Red Team players insist on writing a blank check and killing everyone who isn't an American. Others want to see the MIC reduced to a mere National Guard. Religion is also a wedge issue. Racism, too.

On the Blue Team, you'll find similar woes. Note how every Amendment that Liberals like is a natural right given to 'all people',

This would be an awesome point, if only "corrupt," "ineffective," and "diabolical genius" were traits that were mutually exclusive of one another!

Just as calling for tax cuts on the wealthy need not conflict with the assertion that there are corrupt plutocrats who are purchasing the government wholesale, unless you're claiming that the only reason we have taxes are to keep people from getting too rich to corrupt the political process? Or are you suggesting that once someone gets some money, they will always turn to corrupting the political process?

Pairing a couple claims you disagree with doesn't mean that the positions are incompatible with one another. It is entirely possible to be a diabolical genius who is both corrupt, and ineffective. It is also possible to hold the economic policy that tax cuts on the wealthy are a good thing while decrying the fact that some wealthy people who happen to be corrupt are purchasing the government wholesale. The positions are not logically inconsistent with one another, you just happen to disagree with them.

I am not disagreeing with your premise that there's a lot of wingnuts in the Republican party and conservative "movement". (Full disclosure: I think there's just as many nutters on the Democrat/liberal side of the fence as well). There's a lot of wordsmithing in order to garner support from a particular interest group on both sides.

But the stuff you're citing is not, on its face, contradictory: diabolical genius simply implies that the person is very *smart*, in a wicked way. I know lots of smart peopl

Judging by history, nearly every single expansion of government power is later used as precedent for yet even more expansion of government power. Every year we are subject to more laws, more spending, and increasingly larger attacks on our freedom (from our own government that is, not the enemy du jour). It's obvious that if expanding the business of government isn't the #1 priority, it's damn near close.

There's a reason why the US government of today dwarfs the US government of only 50, let alone 100 years

In principle, you have a point that's worth examining in reasoned discussion. But in fact, this argument by Maes is one of the nuttiest misapplications of the slippery-slope argument I've heard in months.

Reality check. The government has been involved in transportation for as long as there have been public roads.

I don't know the details of this program. I have definite preferences for how I'd like to see something like this structured, and depending on the details I might or might not support it.

But to claim its a new expansion of government power just doesn't make sense. State and local governments in major cities always have their hands in public transportation in one way or another; it's true for bus, light rail, subway, etc.; so what's so special about bikes?

Besides that, it would be quite a jump to extrapolate from "any old minor expansion of the government's function" to "restriction of personal liberties" and "population control". Can you propose a theory as to how this program contributes, even as a "tip of the wedge", to the surrendering of personal liberty to the government?

Can you propose a theory as to how this program contributes, even as a "tip of the wedge", to the surrendering of personal liberty to the government?

Isn't it obvious? Bikes are the last form of anonymous transport -- no license plates. These bikes will be marked and we will all be tracked by the NSA who will share the information with the Rand Corporation who will sell it to their partners in the Bildeberg Group!!!!!

One explanation for what you perceive could be that there's a vast conspiracy controlling most of the news media

Who said anything about a conspiracy? I'm pointing out that most "news" outlets have an editorial orientation, and that the majority of those very demonstrably lean noticeably to the left. To pretent otherwise is absurd. That's what makes the shrill, foot-stamping, name-calling stuff aimed at one cable channel ring so particularly hollow.

Anybody who watches MSNBC will tell you that they're left-leaning, sometimes to the point of uselessness. They've become the mirror-image of fox, but even those on the left know this. We take it with a grain of salt. Fox's demographic rarely seems to do the same.

Also, I can't really speak for ABC, NBC or CBS (I don't get those where I live) but if you think CNN is in any way a left-leaning network you're totally insane. They're the closest thing to an impartial network left in the country, and they always

It seems like the crazy theories are getting more traction (at least, they're getting more people talking about them as if they were real).

I blame the media - Glenn Beck, FOX, CNN. It's apparently cheaper to yammer on about random stuff than to pay real journalists to gather real news. And it seems to get better ratings. Of course, this increase in ratings means that the old line news organizations see they are losing out and feel the need to climb onto the bandwagon. And, of course, we all enjoy a bit of gossip and a good conspiracy theory.

It's all fun and games until a majority of people in your town start thinking of the National Enquirer as a reliable source of news. Seriously, people, some of this stuff is from WAY out in left field. {joke alert} Even I'm starting to believe Obama's "long form" (because the "short form" and a legal affadavit from the Hawaiian secretary of state aren't good enough) birth certificate is being hidden at the UN to keep us from learning the truth!

So...how do we reverse this and encourage more critical thinking? I fear for our democracy if this silliness continues much longer.

Hey, if you could install a brain fungus in 20% of the people that would make them vote for your plutocratic ideal without knowing about it, you would.

No I wouldn't, neither would you, neither would most people. We haven't been brainwashed into thinking that oppressive control is a central tenant of civilization like the rich have. Those raised rich, as a general rule, are taught that civilization needs the stick, and you can either be the one wielding it, or the one getting hit by it.

Nope, his handlers have reigned him in and told him he sounded like a wingnut conspiracy theorist. Just a few days after his comments he had this to say when asked by the news station: "I haven't even had the time to visit the terms of the agreement that Mayor Hickenlooper has signed off on. I am gonna beg a little patience from the media, so I can study the details of this program and then make a much more informed commentary about it."

In other words, "I made a ridiculous accusation without even so much as reading the law I was talking about. Please, please, please ignore what I said earlier while I stall for time until this whole thing blows over."

One correction - The incumbent in this election for governor is Bill Ritter who is not running for re-election. Maes Democratic opponent is John Hickenlooper who is currently the mayor of Denver

Correction to correction: Dan Maes somehow managed to win the Republican primary so he's the Republican candidate. He's facing Hickenlooper and independent-with-name-recognition Tom Tancredo, who ran for US President in 2008. Usually third-party candidates don't have a chance, but Tancredo has a lot of local support, so right now he's polling 18% [rasmussenreports.com] with Hickenlooper at about 40% and Maes with about 30%.

As an aside, every time I ride through Denver I see dozens of people out on those cute red bicycles. It's an amazingly successful program, that isn't supported by Federal, State, or local funds, and since the individuals who use the bikes have a financial stake (deposit, credit card info) in keeping the bikes in reasonable shape, it has a much higher chance of being successful in the long-term than many of the other city bike programs that have been floated. Plus, the bikes are keen. They weigh a ton but they have a huge cargo basket, so they're actually useful for lugging stuff. Two weeks ago I saw a couple riding them and they had a kid's bicycle in the basket of one bike, and the kid herself in the basket of the other bike -- not a WISE thing, but indicative of the flexibility the bikes can provide. They have front and rear lights that are always on when the bike's moving, compliments of a hub generator system, so they're quite visible. I think it's a fantastic program.

I can't find the article right now but Dan Maes is on record as saying that Denver's bike program "may threaten our personal freedoms [denverpost.com]". Once you realize that the last job Maes had was as a used car salesman, his feelings might be more understandable, if not more sensible.

"It's all part of this population control mentality that we as humans are the disease," Strauch said.

Yes, from the point of the view of the planet and every other living thing, we are the disease. There's somewhere around 6+ billion people, happily eating, consuming, polluting, and destroying to our hearts' content. Installing higher efficiency light bulbs or buying Prius' or switching to riding a bike aren't going to avert a collapse in our global ecology/economy. We have to stop destroying our food and ecosystems on which we rely and undo the damage we've done. In short, stop charging to our children's credit cards, start paying them off, then start saving. Switching to riding a bike is like spending just a little less on their credit cards. We have to do so much more.

The world is vastly over populated. Yes if everybody on the planet each got a knife made out of recycled glass and used it carefully to murder a neighbour, then the whole problem would be halved over night.

World overpopulation is a temporary problem. Nearly every indigineous Western population is experiencing population decline, and many western populations have been seeing this for 100 years or so. The richer people get, the better educated people get, the less they have children. The number one best way to decrease population growth currently is to make sure people have more money, and make sure they're decently educated.

That being said, world population is forecast to continue growing until about 2060,

Worst case scenario on the over consumption is that we all go back to using animals for labor and transportation (granted with a less beautiful earth after all the strip mining and mountain destroying). Who says we need to have our current energy based society for ever?

If everybody went next door to murder a neighbor, no one would be next door to be a victim.

There's a 50% chance you'll have a fight to the death with the guy from two houses down.(Assuming everyone flips a coin to go right or left, assuming 1 person per house, assuming you don't tangle with anyone on the way, etc.)

if everybody on the planet each got a knife made out of recycled glass and used it carefully to murder a neighbour, then the whole problem would be halved over night.

If everybody went next door to murder a neighbor, no one would be next door to be a victim.

You assume one occupant per house, or one destination per household. If the average household has 2 people in it, and they went to different houses, then everyone would be in their neighbor's living room having a knife fight with their neighbor's neighbor, while their neighbors and their neighbors' neighbors' neighbors fought in their neighbors' neighbors' living rooms.

Wow, I thought the guy was utterly insane when I clicked on the story, now I realize he's talking about guys like you. Not to say I agree or disagree with your viewpoint, but you just verified he's ranting against a real group, not a vague strawman like I thought originally. So disappointing when I thought I was going to be able to laugh at him.

What's odd to me is it generally seems to be liberals who talk about how we're "overpopulated" and a "disease on the planet." And yet they're also the ones who are saying it's our duty as a society to feed the hungry... cure the sick... and put a roof over the head of the homeless.

If your view is that we're overpopulated and we need to reduce our population... why not just stop paying for food & medicine & housing for the people who can't get it themselves, and let the problem solve itself? Everyb

Once again, you're identifying the problem as "too many people". If that's the case, then why aren't you simply saying "Let the ones who can't fend for themselves die off?"

The problem is one of technology. Technology is not, in and of itself, "bad." Compare lifestyles today with lifestyles 200 years ago, and see how much it has improved things. If we can agree that technology is the solution, and it simply needs to get better / more sustainable / less damaging to the environment, then we have a basis for discussion.

If you insist on saying that the only way to live on this planet is for us to cull the population until we reach some sort of "golden number" which you've decided is sustainable, then all I can say to that is: "Sure, you go right ahead and suicide first. I'll keep working on a technological solution."

Because technologically advanced countries, with their higher standards of living & higher literacy & education standards are NOT the countries contributing the lion's share of population growth, by and large. In fact, I remember reading that some European countries actually have declining populations, when you factor out immigration from other countries as an increase to their populations.

Your assertion that it's "always been the case until now" is not borne out by the facts. A population's growth will tend to stabilize or even decline as education and living standards for that population increase - we've seen this case play out repeatedly in industrialized countries.

Of course there's a practical limit to growth - and we are well short of it. The earth's land masses have a surface area of ~150 million km square - 1.5x10^14 square meters; with 7 billion people on earth, that translates to roughly 20,000 square meters per person, or 47 people per square kilometer. I think you'll find that population densities in quite-livable cities regularly exceed that - New York's density is roughly 11,000 / km2. Even if the average population density on earth doubled to 100 per square kilometer, we still would be nowhere near having a world that is one giant city with no natural open spaces.

If we fit everybody in the world into a city with the population density of NYC, it'd be a city of about 637,000 sq. km. This is smaller than the size of Texas, which is about 696,000 sq. km. So, at the density of NYC, everybody on earth could fit into an area the size of Texas. Leaving the rest of the North America, and all the other 6 continents... completely uninhabited by humans.

OMG! There's a socialist under every rock, and we need to protect ourselves from these anti-consumerist, anti-free trade, anti-American perpetrators of evil! Sharing bikes is a sign of socialism, and everyone needs to buy their own bike if we are to have a free and functioning democracy. If we let these socialist put bikes out there to share, it is inevitable they will hook our young children on their evil ideas of sharing. Once people start sharing, particularly government purchased stuffs, our young will grow into people who will want a bigger government which provides more stuffs to share. Where will it end? It won't end with bikes. It won't end with cars, RVs, boats or the like. No, soon the government will grow to offer all sorts of things. This bike program is really a back door route to medical health care. If we're getting free bikes to use, we'll want free health care. That's when the socialists have got us. Of course, free medical care will lead to limiting children, death panels, and LSD. Stop the socialists today, "Just say no to bicycles!".

No, but forced "intelligent" use of resources is, perhaps not equivalent to but a convenient excuse for socialism.

I'm not entirely sure if biking leads to socialistic New World Order (although those Chinese do like bikes, don't they?), but if something were really intelligent and prudent use of resources, it shouldn't need government programs for promotion. This is the same logic under which I avoid all "organic" foods—if it were good food, it wouldn't need the "organic" label to sell itself to me.

mccarthyism was an era of fear of "secret communists" everywhere, and joe mccarthy successfully inserted himself as demagogue in chief of the wave of fear and hysteria sweeping the land in the time of sputnik and soviets with an atom bomb. strangely, it was also an era when 3D movies were all the rage... spin that observation into your own paranoid schizophrenic conspiracy theory

one of the up and coming tea party types will be the next joe mccarthy. they will use this sort of paranoid schizophrenic break with reality to describe "secret muslims" (that's what obama is, ya know), "secret socialists", "secret fascists", etc. taken on their own, theses hysterical creative inventions are like a farcical hollywood movie. but so many actually and truly believe this crap

there's just a certain panicky low iq kind of human, in the usa and other countries, who is apparently about as gullible as a toddler in a carnival haunted house ride, and for whatever reason, they only believe the most fantastical fearful propaganda they encounter. i guess reality is too mundane and boring? i don't know what to do about these people, they have these coordinated waves of fear throughout history, and i don't know if there is an effective way to defuse their delusional problems before they damage our societies

its the same as the salem witch trials: she dresses funny, and floats, so she's a witch, so kill her before she hurts us. in the era of joe mccarthy, it was fluoridated water (fluoridated water was not to strengthen teeth, but to turn you into a communist). later there were "chemtrails": jet airplanes contrails were seeding the atmosphere with mind control chemicals. people really and truly believed and believe this nonsense. its alternatively hilarious and frightening. it tells you the mentality of how lynch mobs form, its a sad phenomenon of human sociology

and this manipulated fearmongered hysteria is the mentality that is sweeping the land right now. sad

I read the article and reread and reread it, and I cannot even begin to see how, from *ANY* perspective that I can conceive of some other even modestly intelligent person having, that one could come to the conclusions that he did.

Most conspiracy theories I've heard of have at least a shred of something to at least build the conspiracy on, but I just can't find any evidence of it in that article.

I read the article and reread and reread it, and I cannot even begin to see how, from *ANY* perspective that I can conceive of some other even modestly intelligent person having, that one could come to the conclusions that he did.

Most conspiracy theories I've heard of have at least a shred of something to at least build the conspiracy on, but I just can't find any evidence of it in that article.

I really hate defending Maes since I think he's being an idiot. Disclaimer: back when he was just a used car salesman he worked for my girlfriend's father, so I know a bit about him.

What he's concerned by is, in part, treaties. Y'know how we on slashdot are all against ACTA and other such things, because we feel like a treaty comes sailing in with all sorts of draconian conditions, and Congress either confirms it, in which case we're stuck, or doesn't confirm it, in which case businesses yell that we're

You could argue that increasing bicycle usage was the opposite effect-- of decreasing governmental control and increasing freedom. Right now we're reliant on a massive government-controlled system of roads which we travel on via government-subsidized vehicles. Automobiles are big and regulated and subsidized and result in a sort of "central planning". Bicycles on the other hand-- anyone can build a bicycle. A bicycle doesn't need a road, and bike paths are much easier to build/move.

I suspect this comes more from the belief that if something is healthy and environmentally friendly and doesn't subsidize big businesses, then it must be some kind of nefarious socialist hippie plot.

Yea, the guy's talking nonsense - trying to link his opponent to the UN through some international tree hugger organization. But I don't read Slashdot to find articles about Tea Partiers that were scraped from an AOL website founded by a former NY Times editor. Sheesh.

It doesn't matter if his point is legitimate, or if he clearly makes the statement that he wants time to study what the mayor has signed onto. He's a republican and he doesn't like bikes. This has nothing to do with an environmental initiative that is being spearheaded without review. Remember if you want bills to be read by congress before they are voted on then you are a racist who doesn't like the children or the poor. It's funny who people who opposed the Patriot Act for all the right reasons turn a blind eye to this new wave of legislation that is going through without checks or balances of any kind, and without even the time for everyone to know what it's all about. Remember Ted Stevens said the Internet is made of tubes, not that he did anything good or bad. Move along folks, nothing to see here other than a Republican who doesn't like bikes.

That's the whole point about programs for the greater good, though-- it need not turn a profit because it's FOR THE GREATER GOOD. Yeah, sometimes small businesses get wiped out. If that's your most important criteria, you will never make a change for the better, because it will always have some bad.

People complain all the time that Amtrak doesn't make a profit, but... nobody seems to notice or care that our roads don't either.

It's a comfort and protection thing. It's the same reason people wear shoes, or gloves if they're doing something that may otherwise wear/cut the hands. When you think of someone who rides 30 miles daily (not an outlandish number AT ALL if you're into it), the number of times you cycle your legs is certainly enough to chafe if you're just wearing boxers and shorts, for example. Of course, some may wear them to prove they're serious about cycling, or because they WANT people to look at their labia, but that's just people being silly geese.

I don't know if American empire has reached its pinnacle, or if this is just another period of idiocy. If you look back at our history, we've gone through this many times and progressed despite the temporary regression. Look at the first Red Scare, the second Red Scare, the cold war, all the various anti-immigration movements, witch hunts, etc.

At last a challenger to onetime New Hampshire governor Meldrim Thomson as the craziest governor ever. Amongst numerous bizarre actions and ideas, Thomson wanted to arm the New Hampshire National Guard with nuclear weapons.

The political spectrum in America has shifted so far to the right that pre-80s Republicans and modern-day Democrats are very similar. Eisenhower, Nixon, Theodore Roosevelt, would all be drummed out of the Republican party today for being extreme liberal socialists.

An interesting effect of this is that your "left wing" president is in complete lock step with the UK Conservative party which has been accused of being the most right-wing mainstream political party in Europe.

I heard a rumour once that they have some advisers in common. Anyone know who?

An interesting effect of this is that your "left wing" president is in complete lock step with the UK Conservative party which has been accused of being the most right-wing mainstream political party in Europe.

Really? Because Brits think that our President hates their guts [dailymail.co.uk]. One of the first things he did was to diss the sitting LabourPrime Minister [washingtonpost.com]. So you're honestly going to argue that Barack Obama has warm feelings for the Tories?

And just who is it that's "accusing" the UK Conservative Party of being the most right-wing of the mainstream parties in Europe? Would that be, oh.... Labour? I mean, that would be a shock now, wouldn't it?

The political spectrum in America has shifted so far to the right that pre-80s Republicans and modern-day Democrats are very similar. Eisenhower, Nixon, Theodore Roosevelt, would all be drummed out of the Republican party today for being extreme liberal socialists.

How so, and by what measure do you say this? During Ike's term, defense spending took up 50 percent of the total budget. It's been nowhere near that since then, even during Reagan's term. Ike had an anti-illegal immigration program... Operation Wetback [wikipedia.org]... that actually rounded up illegal Mexicans by the shipfull, and then sailed them down to southern Mexico and dropped them off at their southern borders so they couldn't immediately re-cross our border. Not only was Bush II pro-amnesty, Reagan signed an amnesty that instantly legalized millions of illegals. Reagan made the VA... truly, a socialized medicine scheme... a freakin' cabinet position, and Dubya signed a prescription drug benefit program into law that would have given FDR a boner. Ike, meanwhile, told Americans that if they wanted new services, they'd have to pay for it upfront with new taxes, right now.

Tell me again how much farther to the right Republicans are today? Really? If anything, this is one of the things New Gingrich is actually right about, when he called guys like Bob Dole... who supported Obamacare, by the way... a "tax collector for the welfare state".

And Teddy Roosevelt? How do you think he would have responded to 9/11? I'll lay cash that it wouldn't have been with Dubya's soothing speeches about how "Islam is a religion of peace". The Rough Rider would have turned Mecca into a sea of glass. So enough with the "today's GOP is so extreme" nonsense. Compared to what?

It's designed for people traveling to Urban areas that don't have good public transportation. You take a bus/train/etc to the transit hub for an urban area then use the bike to get where you need to go. Once you're done with your business return the bike to a rental station and hop back onto the bus. Heck, it's not a bad deal for congested cities where you could park on the outskirts of downtown and then use the bike for the rest of the trip.

As a person who does virtually all my personal transportation by bicycle, I am going to request that you read the goddamn book of traffic laws for your state. In every state in this country and in virtually the rest of the world, bicycles are vehicles and have exactly as much a right to the road as cars, motorcycles, scooters, or any other vehicle. In fact, most cities explicitly prohibit bicycles from riding on the sidewalks.

I have to have this same conversation with every damn person who honks at me for r

The bicycles used in these rental programs have a unique look and would be quickly spotted if somebody tried to sell them.

Can/does theft and vandalism occur? Sure. A loss rate is built into the cost of operations. If someone is looking to make money, however, they'd be much better off by either stealing conventional bikes or simply using the fake credit card directly. If somebody can easily get fake credit cards and drivers licenses then they can find far more lucrative crime options than trying to sell eas

Agree. The current population level of this planet is too damn high if we are going to have any sort of quality of life. Otherwise what is going on is completely unsustainable. I'd even say 1 billion is excessive. The Club of Rome seems to think maybe half that is about right.

If we continue down the current road there will be another form of population control - the earth's environment will degrade to the point where we will have a 'Great Die-Back'.